I read with interest your editorial “We’ll truck on without a Toyota plant” in Friday’s edition.

You point to the fact that Southwest Mississippi lacks any major manufacturing businesses.

I think that Natchez has a unique position to attract or rebuild a major employer of people in the Miss-Lou area. I refer to the old Armstrong Tire Plant. If I were the union leaders, the owner of the building, the Board of Supervisors and the Board of Aldermen and Mayor of Natchez, I would be planning my trips to Jackson to talk to the Governor and Legislature, to Washington, D.C. to talk to the Congressmen and Senators of Mississippi, and to Japan – not necessarily in this order. I would go with my “hat in my hand,” bowing, and scraping the floor.

If I am not mistaken, each one of those vehicles on the assembly line has to have four tires. There is economic development money available to establish new businesses.

Isn’t it worth the time and effort to attract a major contract to build tires for this plant? I would not worry about the union and its demands. Pay a workable, livable wage and pray that the owners of Toyota would send some of its business to Natchez.

It is time we work together forgetting about our own turf and see if we can’t get a contract to build tires for Toyota in Natchez.

Michael D. Guice

Meadville resident